Muslims & Nazis

[JerrySeinfeld]

Good comparison.

Can you think of the last society that tried to supress freedom of the press, expression and kill those who disagreed?

[crazymf]

I don't think so Tim....

The Nazis were a technologically advanced right wing dictatorship.

The Muslims seem to like their backwards religious based third world views.

I would compare them more to the Mongol hordes except without leadership or direction, ready to self destruct into a feeding frenzy of internal disorganisation.

I truly think that the best way to deal with this emerging Muslim discontent is to merely monitor it and not react to it until it becomes a tangible threat. People want to demonstrate and burn flags? So what.

[Michael Hardner]

The Nazis were a political party elected in Germany, with an ideology that drove them to exterminate innocent civilians and invade nations.

Islam is a religion practiced by different races of different backgrounds across the globe. The interpretation of that religion varies, as it does with every other major religion.

The Nazis were bound to one country that invaded other countries in Europe so the response followed the usual process: diplomacy, then military action.

Islam is the chief religion of many countries (some are our allies, some not) but these countries aren't themselves exercising any military actions right now, with the possible exception of developing military capabilities (Iran). Iran is also a peculiar case, because the general population itself is fairly westernized and culturally at odds with its leadership.

So with the Islamic radicals, you have a problem of disparate intolerance and propensity towards violence. This is also a problem in other non-Islamic countries and ignorance is a general problem everywhere. There are moderate and modern Muslims, but there was only one flavour of Nazisism.

I think it's a mistake to attach a threat to the religion itself, ignoring other factors. No one has yet supplied a good reason why Islam itself would cause its adherents to become violent, which leads me to think that there are other factors happening here.

[Leafless]

Michael Harner

You wrote- " No one has yet supplied a good reason why Islam itself would cause it's aderents to become violent which leads me to think there are other factors happening here."

"Kill the Jew, kill the Christian, kill the Isareli, kill the American" are words preached by Islamic clerics in their mosques.

Muslims are people like the Germans or Russians but Islam as a system is evil like Nazism and Communism.

Islam is a world domination system like Nazism and Communism.

[Michael Hardner]

Muslims are people like the Germans or Russians but Islam as a system is evil like Nazism and Communism.

Islam is a world domination system like Nazism and Communism.

Why though ? What is it about Islam particularly ?

Anything that has been said about Islam as a religion is true of other religions, but when Muslims commit violence it's the religion itself that is blamed.

[Drea]

Wasn't Hiltler was a Christain Fundamentalist?

Didn't he follow the doctrine of "Nazzarine" an ancient Christain sect? (Hence the word NAZI)

He bastardized it however by tying it to the superiority of the Aryan race and his own personal power adgenda (and of course, he was as crazy as a loon in December!)

[Michael Hardner]

He followed the doctrine of "Nazzarine" an ancient Christain sect. (Hence the word NAZI)

I believe it actually came from 'National Socialist'. Anybody ?

[Leafless]

Michael Hardner

You wrote- " I believe it came from 'Nationalist Socialist'. Anybody"

And this is also directed to Drea who thinks it is religiously inspired from an ancient Christian sect "Nazzerine".

Nazi is an abbreviation for a member of 'Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Workingmen's party'.

The nickname 'Nazi' originated from the German pronounciation of the first two syllables of "National".

[scribblet]

Michael Hardner

You wrote- " I believe it came from 'Nationalist Socialist'. Anybody"

And this is also directed to Drea who thinks it is religiously inspired from an ancient Christian sect "Nazzerine".

Nazi is an abbreviation for a member of 'Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Workingmen's party and the Swastika was taken from the sanskrita - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix.

The nickname 'Nazi' originated from the German pronounciation of the first two syllables of "National".

Right on. The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix.

I believe Hitler was supposed to be a Catholic, and did so until he died. "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so," he told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals, in 1941.

When we think of anti semitism, intolerance we think of Nazis, and today we tend to equate it with radical Islam for the same reasons. There's a good article I'll post in part, which I got in an email but no link.

Muslim societies have paid a dear price for the militants in their midst. Many of the best and brightest within the Muslim world have had to flee to the West to avoid being silenced or killed. Fazlur Rahman, a brilliant and

deeply religious Pakistani scholar of Islam, had to flee his native land for the University of Chicago. Similarly, the Islamic studies scholar Nasr Abu Zayd fled Egyptian Islamists for the Netherlands. Naguib Mahfouz, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was stabbed in the neck in Cairo and barely survived; the Egyptian writer Faraj Foda was not so lucky.

In some Western Muslim quarters, the proposed solution is more censorship that these cartoons and similar expressions should be banned as hate speech. By that logic, shouldn't Salafist diatribes against Shiites also be banned? Shouldn't the writings of Maulana Abul Ala Maududi and his Jamaat-e-Islami, which were instrumental in persecuting the Ahmadis, a Muslim minority in Pakistan, be banned as well? Maududi's religious writings, best sellers among Muslims in the West, are suffused with an intolerant and anti-Western hue.

Today's Muslim leaders, for their part, seem unable to formulate an ethical response to the challenges of the modern world. Moreover, their actions lead to the stereotyping of Islam. What else is one to conclude from this episode?

The loudest and most murderous forces have chosen to forget the spirit of the Koran, which opens with an invocation of God's mercy and compassion and which repeatedly urges believers to practice patience and kindness. There is something very ugly about the power of the radicals, their recourse to violence, their anti-intellectualism and their ability to trample and blaspheme a more humanistic Islamic tradition.

It is right and proper for Muslims to be offended, to be hurt, to protest. But we should be wary of the authoritarian voices that claim to speak and act in the name of Islam. The answer is not more violence and censorship, but rather peace, mercy and compassion.

[Drea]

Michael Hardner

You wrote- " I believe it came from 'Nationalist Socialist'. Anybody"

And this is also directed to Drea who thinks it is religiously inspired from an ancient Christian sect "Nazzerine".

Nazi is an abbreviation for a member of 'Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Workingmen's party'.

The nickname 'Nazi' originated from the German pronounciation of the first two syllables of "National".

I asked the question -- didn't say I believed it.

I've been reading a book about Freemasonry which mentions an ancient sect of Christianity called the "Nazarines" (sp)

It's a natural conclusion to suspect that the word Nazi comes from the word Nazarine (Jesus of Nazareth started this "sect" btw -- "Christianity" as we know it didn't begin until well after Jesus' death.

Hitler could certainly have been using it for his own twisted purposes -- he was a pretty freakin twisted guy!

So Dear Leafless -- I POSED A QUESTION -- I did not state a belief.

[arif]

Let me begin by saying that noone likes the Nazi comparison being thrown around willy-nilly.

Michael pointed out some important distinctions between Nazism and Islam. It's interesting to note that the Nazi's used a Sanskrit symbol with an essential benign meaning, in fact a symbol of the Jain religion.

The Jain religion is actually an ultra-pacifist religion, very ascetic and some adherents do not even eat from a plant that has been uprooted, only plant life that can nourish without losing it's own life, and some Jains even wear a mask over their mouth so as to not kill insects as they walk in the street. The swastika used by the Nazis is actually backwards and is more like a swavastika. The (original) swastika is designed in clockwise rotation, while the swavastika is designed in counterclockwise rotation, swastika actually symbolizing being with the current of nature, and swavastika against it - which is an interesting footnote.

In any case, the use of religious language, symbolism etc. does not translate into a representation of that religion. The swastika (or swavastika) now unforunately represents Nazism, but Nazism is the antithesis of Jainism which produced the symbol. But Hitler claimed to be Christian, yet we can only find in him an antithesis in him to Christian religious ideas of "love they neighbour", and "love thy enemy", while any basis in Christianity for his program can only be linked to obscure and bastardized interpretations.

Now, when we take Islamic religious violence it's not as clear and we are caught up also in facing what is happening now, without the luxury of hindsight. Yet, if we take Koranic and hadith-based religious ideas, we have injunctions like "there is no compulsion in religion" and "to kill one innocent person is to kill all of humanity", and injunctions against suicide. In this light, suicide bombings and terrorism can only be seen as heretical. Just as Hitler ought to be seen as heretical in any attempt to link genocide with a Christian basis.

But we are facing what is happening now, and let me say that as a crisis for the world and the West, it is double a crisis for Muslims. We cannot equate Islam with Nazism, yet Muslims and the rest of the world face a dangerous trend in Islam. That trend must be reversed, and rather than fighting ignorance with ignorance, I hope that the rest of the world help Muslims fight that trend. One way we have been fighting the trend is through scholarship, and if you are so inclined, I would invite you to investigate good intellectual work in Islam that addresses the ill-conceived notions of the extreme.

But the battle cannot be won from the Ivory Tower alone. The Muslim world needs a vast improvement in education leading to opportunities, better standard of living. Madrassas that teach the Koran by rote and hate towards other religions have got to be replaced by modern education emphasizing pluralism, knowledge and universal values, just as that education ought to be global, it also ought to provide Muslims with a much broader, deeper and more appropriate to modern life understanding of Islam. Democracy will not follow just from elections, but from strengthened civil society and the nurturing of nascent freedoms and their responsibilities.

I encourage you to put aside sweeping generalizations about Islam, so that you can see that Islam may be your ally against radical Islamism. Islam as a faith is as far away from radical Islamism as Jainism and Christianity are from Nazism. Make your distinctions and know your enemy.

For your enjoyment, below I have pasted two poems, one from a Muslim poet, one from the Jains - I'll let you guess which is which!

I am wishing members of all faiths and backgrounds great peace and happiness, from this Muslim! (could such a wish be emitted from a Nazi?)

Cheers,

Arif

Know other creatures' love for life,

For they are like you.

Kill them not; save their life from fear and enmity.

All creatures desire to live, not to die.

Hence to kill is to sin.

A godly man does not kill.

Therefore, kill not yourself, consciously or

Unconsciously, living organisms which move

Or move not, nor cause slaughter of them.

He who looketh on the creatures of the earth,

Big and small, as his own self, comprehendeth this immense world.

Among the careless, he who restraineth self is enlightened.

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You who are not kept anxiously awake for love's sake, sleep on.

In restless search for that river, we hurry along;

you whose heart such anxiety has not disturbed, sleep on.

Love's place is out beyond the many separate sects;

since you love choosing and excluding, sleep on.

Love's dawn cup is our sunrise, his dusk our supper;

you whose longing is for sweets and whose passion

is for supper, sleep on.

In search of the philosopher's stone, we are melting like copper;

you whose philosopher's stone is cushion and pillow, sleep on.

I have abandoned hope for my brain and head; you who wish for

a clear head and fresh brain, sleep on.

I have torn speech like a tattered robe and let words go;

you who are still dressed in your clothes, sleep on.